Tuesday, April 3, 2012

THE AUDIENCE

There should be a difference between a good performance and a great one. Sensibly, one applauds at the end of the former and rises to one’s feet for the latter. About which is which, one knows in one’s bones. Or does one?

I don’t recall seeing in the old days audiences bent on rushing into a standing ovation even for a mediocre, sometimes indeed dismal, play, as if they were goosed by their seats. But nowadays standing ovations are as common as dirt, and strike me as a dirty joke. Why, even at a performance much later than the premiere, benighted souls will leap to their feet, clapping and cheering, as if to stand were standard procedure. This raises a number of questions.

Are audiences particularly stupid? Or did they spend so much on their tickets that they must resort to this device to prove to themselves that the money was well worth it? Or are they lusting for some sort of participation in the creative process and deluding themselves that this is it? Or are they just trying to show off with how much smarter they are than their still sedentary neighbors? What they certainly don’t realize is that they are devaluing the standing ovation, and often adding insult to injury by their shrieks or howls, or whatever you call the throat complementing the feet.

Of course, once a fool thinks up a new trick like that shriek or howl or whatever it is, there is never a shortage of copycats or lemmings to follow suit. We have seen it happen even in the refined sport of tennis, where after Monica Seles started the grunt, it took hold of any number of distinguished players, women first but eventually some men as well. Whatever it means in tennis, in the theater and concert hall it indulges the herd’s need to be heard. Forget about I think, therefore I am: Descartes is discarded. The new motto is: I make noise, therefore I am. And the standing ovation, sometimes also accompanied by foot stamping, is the shout made visible.

Alas, that is not the only sound we hear from audiences. Any number of people talk during the show. It is argued, not without plausibility, that because they watch so much on television, they have lost the sense of difference between the theater and the living room. Some people, more commonly but not exclusively at the movies, randomly get up and leave, and sooner or later return. I doubt that it can all be to the toilet. But it can disturb, like two heads in front of you repeatedly coming together, which is talk made visible.

Some such people can be shushed. Others get furious, glower at you, and continue as before. The supposed option of complaining to an usher is useless. Even in the remote possibility of finding one, it means missing too much of the play or concert. And just what can an usher do? The culprits know that they won’t be physically ejected; a reprimand mostly earns the usher and you the wrath of other audience members who, until now, were not disturbed.

For so many hidebound people in the audience, from whom you might hope for support, the misbehaving persons in front of them don’t matter, and neither do the ones behind them. So perhaps new ways of dealing with the talkers must be invented. Perhaps one could have an index card ready to thrust at them, reading “If you’ll kindly stop talking, I’ll give you a monetary award at the end of the show.”

Sometimes if you hear what they are saying, you can score. At a Truffaut film, where the camera raced around sights of Paris, a man behind me kept identifying them for his companion. “The Eiffel Tower,” he would say, or “Notre Dame Cathedral,” and the like. Finally, when he announced the Triumphal Arch, I corrected him: “No, the Brooklyn Navy Yard.” This somehow stumped him into silence.

Then, at the cinema where there are empty seats, a talker will tell you, “If you don’t like it, move!” You might want to question him why it doesn’t occur to him to follow his own advice. But the trouble is that the offender is often a huge, burly, uncouth fellow, who might start a brawl or worse. In that case, by moving yourself, you may miss some important part of the movie, not to mention disturb innocent people in your present row and the one you move to.

Sometimes I think enviously of mad king Ludwig of Bavaria, who had Wagner compose works for him played at the Private Theater with the king the sole audience. That may well be the ideal enjoyment, especially at a comedy, where primitive audiences will laugh louder and longer than the maddest monarch, and often make you lose several lines of dialogue and the next joke. Sad to say, though I might try to approximate Ludwig’s madness, his money is beyond my wildest dreams.

Speaking of concerts, the late great and eccentric music critic B. H. Haggin was so disgusted with audiences, though rather better at classical concerts (I keep forgetting that these days anything is called a concert), that he would hold his program up before him so that it would block out the audience and leave only the stage in view. I never attended anything sitting close to him, so I can’t tell to what extent he made a spectacle of himself for those he couldn’t block out. He was also unusual among music critics by ignoring if possible any music later than that of the late Romantics.

My own taste is the exact opposite. I have no interest in music from before roughly 1840, and can only wonder at the adulation of, say, Bach and Mozart, when there is Fauré and Debussy and Bartók and Berg and Prokofiev and Janáček, to name only a few. I recall the time when the great lieder singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau gave three recitals in Carnegie Hall, all of which I attended. The first two, Schubert ones, I enjoyed well enough, but really looked forward to the third, which was to be all Hugo Wolf. But Sol Hurok, the concert manager, managed to talk the baritone into sticking with Schubert, who apparently was bigger at the box office. As we were leaving, I bumped into Haggin, who asked me, “Wasn’t it wonderful?” I replied that I would have much preferred Wolf. Haggin burst out laughing; for him, I must have been the only one with such a preference.

I realize now that I have strayed a bit from the subject of the audience. But I too, like all critics, am also audience. And perhaps the only subject on which I wholly agree with my colleagues is about not talking during a show. I mean the professional critics, and not those unfortunate bloggers who, in the Age of the Internet , when everyone is a critic, fancy themselves that. Those, with some honorable exceptions, would do well to shut the hell up.

22 comments:

I have long been a staunch opponent of capital punishment but would be willing to seriously entertain its re-introduction for those who find the need to blabber incessantly (usually about nothing) at concerts, plays, films and whatever else. If not "off with their heads" let it at least be their collective mouths!

I think a lot of people go for standing ovation because in our Cult of Niceness, we are supposed to make everyone feel good. In the Age of Oprah, every artist has 'creative' worth, and it would be reactionary, snobby, and elitist to not appreciate every artist who is trying soooo hard. Also, since most plays are politically correct--and the audience is too--, the audience is praising the message, which usually amounts to 'gays are just super!'

Of course, the ironic thing is though audiences for plays are anti-elitist ideologically, the reason they go to the theater is to set themselves apart from the unwashed masses who just watch TV.

"Of course, the ironic thing is though audiences for plays are anti-elitist ideologically, the reason they go to the theater is to set themselves apart from the unwashed masses who just watch TV."

I have no idea what you mean by this statement, or how you stumbled upon the data that entitled you to make it. Audiences for plays are as diverse ideologically as any other group of people. And while we may indeed attend the theater for a variety of reasons, the only assumption you should permit yourself to make is that we do so because we enjoy - and sometimes even love - live theater.

As for the final sentence of your first paragraph, it is beneath the dignity of a response.

Shut up, you snot-nosed punk. You know very well the kind of people I'm talking about. 95% of theater goers are urban elites or wanna-be urban elites who like to think of themselves as 'creative', hip, 'progressive', liberal, and all such crap. And you know full well that many people attend theater for status reasons--"ooh, I go to THEATRE!!"--from the simple fact that 90% of the stuff on stage sucks. Though I only stick to movies and haven't been to theater since 1978(when our school had a field trip to some play in the tonier part of the city), I know full well the kind of idiocy that goes on stage. I saw some clips on youtube, and it made wanna puke. Most of it's stupid messages about how wonderful gays and blacks are. Sure, there are decent blacks and gays, but what about the shitty gays and blacks? Where are the plays about that reality? Shouldn't drama reflect reality? All across cities, we have 'teen' mobs going around robbing and beating up white folks. And we have gays using their political clout to push their agenda up the asses of Americans. But where are the plays on that reality? We don't have it because playwrights and the audience are made up of pansy ass politically correct dolts like you. Punk.

And don't tell me about dignity. You are some snot-nosed shithead without any dignity or real pride. Otherwise, you wouldn't such a prissy and snippy clod.

Thank you, hual cintre, for taking the time to respond to my response.

I may, indeed, be all the things you accuse me of being, but I will nevertheless persevere and ask you where you get your percentages - did someone conduct a poll and come up with them? "95% of theater goers" - is this figure from a scientifically conducted survey or did you just make it up? "90% of the stuff on stage sucks" - for what reason[s] and by whose standards?

And I will also insist that if you wish to criticize the theater and have your "opinions," (if I may use that word for courtesy) taken seriously, you must actually attend the theater, and regularly, whatever your motives. "I ... haven't been to the theater since 1978" can hardly be expected to inspire confidence in your opinions about plays and musicals that have been produced since that long-ago year. And your viewing of "Some clips on YouTube" is, to put it extremely mildly, not enough. Unless you go to live theater regularly - week in, week out, whether you like it or not - you cannot claim to "know full well" anything that goes on [on] the stage. Period, The End, Full Stop.

I'm sorry you missed The Normal Heart (which was extremely critical of politically correct gays) or The Motherf***er with the Hat (which was not exactly kind to pop culture blacks). I could cite more examples but the violent and confrontational nature of your language suggests that you are not interested in civilized debate.

By the way, it is my seriously considered opinion that political correctness is the most overrated of virtues, and that a firm grasp of grammar is the most underrated of communicative tools.

Robert - This guy was a Troll. He's someone who wrote a bunch of inflamatory non-sense in order to get a rise out of the folks here. He came up with a bunch of BS statistics off the top of his head, shouted some hate-filled ignorance, and added nothing to the conversation beyond "damn you for liking something that i don't understand, i saw some YouTube videos so I know what I'm talking about!"

John Simon may indeed have alienated a number of readers, audiences and professionals alike, over the many years he's been writing criticism; even some of his admirers have expressed regret that he's cultivated this curmudgeonly image. Nevertheless he has maintained a significant readership since his first collection was published almost half a century ago, and it includes some pretty distinguished writers, actors, directors and composers.

It's also worth pointing out that other major critics - including Robert Brustein, Stanley Kauffmann, Dwight McDonald, Eric Bentley, Pauline Kael and especially Kenneth Tynan - are no slouches either when it comes to making uncomplimentary remarks about a performer's appearance.

I have found it almost impossible NOT to join the standing ovation--most musicals today do something 'special' during or after their bows and in order to see what is happening you have no choice but to stand up as most of the people in front of you are standing up.The same in plays because if you want to acknowledge a performance you have to get up to see when they come out to take their bow! :O)

I staunchly refuse to stand up simply because everyone else is. I'll stand up if I've seen something great and I think of all the plays I've been to in my life, that's happened only once. And sure my view will get blocked and sure I might miss something and that might be considered cutting my nose off to spite my face, but I won't do it. And consider that if you're standing up because the person in front of you is, that's forcing the person behind you to stand as well. "Do unto others".

It seems the world in general has fallen into the trap that our dear "heavy-fingered" Hual Cintre is wallowing in. The trap I speak of, is the continual "dumbing-down" of the human race. Plays, television, movies...dare I say casual meetings in the park where others were encouraged to use their brains and their words to support their opinion are becoming a thing of the past. Is it true that some plays are garbage? Of course. But, if those "heavy-fingered" masses who stay home and "just watch the TV"....would put a little thought into what was being pushed in their faces (other than junk-food)....they might realize social interaction can be good for them. I, for one, hope to meeting someone here in New York that will give something "new" a try, as New York once did. I'm not talking about special effects....but, truly realizing what the public "thinks" it now needs......Regulate what is brought into your theatre, and reward those theatre goers with $$$ for not disturbing the performance....And, find a producer who has a show with a message to use technology for what it's meant for....just quick communication to get a person back out in the world again, interacting face to face with others!!! And, learning that most people aren't all bad, when talked with.

I don't watch TV, you idiot. That is for the unwashed masses, and I don't like low brow stuff. I go for real art like Blade Runner and Alien 3. The world would be a better place if we had more Blade Runners and Alien 3's.

Of course, Mr. Simon's critique is essentially a truism, but he leaves out a significant miscreant in the equation - the lazy press agent and his failed producer client who is the first to proclaim how many "standing ovations" their foundering show is getting (even if started by paid flacks), devaluing the language as much as the recent press agent announcing the release of a cast album of an "acclaimed" show which had flopped out after less than a month's official run. Yes, it had garnered a few good reviews and would probably yield a nice cast album, but "acclaim" was hardly the appropriate term. As far as the over used but undeserved "standing O", I long ago adopted the practice that if the good folk in front of me forced me to stand to SEE the curtain calls, I would stand, but I would stop applauding except for any specific performance which actually WAS outstanding. I've only heard significant NEGATIVE feedback at the end of performances twice in my experience - the boos which swept the theatre at the end of the first D.C. tryout performance of John Osborn's A PATRIOT FOR ME and after the first act of the world premiere of BRING BACK BIRDIE (and the unfortunate song "Filth") - but if merit-free standing ovations continue to be the practice of the unlettered, I see no reason why the reasoned use of the reverse should not also come back into practice.

About Me

I've written for over 50 years on theatre, film, literature, music and fine arts for the Hudson Review, New Leader, New Criterion, National Review, New York magazine, Opera News, Weekly Standard, Broadway.com, Bloomberg News, The Westchester Guardian and on the Yonkers Tribune website. I'm continuing my contributions to the New York Times Book Review, Weekly Standard and New Criterion. Recently I've been seen on Heat Street. I have a PhD from Harvard University in Comparative Literature.